Abortion guidelines will provide clarity, claims North’s Minister for Health

Northern Ireland Minister for Health Simon Hamilton (DUP) has said new abortion guidelines should provide clarity for healthcare workers when dealing with difficult cases.

Mr Hamilton said agreeing on the guidance, which has been sought by doctors, nurses and midwives for years, has been complex and time-consuming.

The UK’s 1967 Abortion Act does not extend to the North, where abortions are banned except where the life or mental health of the mother is in danger.

Anyone who performs an illegal termination could be jailed for life. Hundreds of women travel to other parts of the UK to access abortion services every year.

The issue was thrust into the spotlight in 2013 when young mother Sarah Ewart went public about having to travel to England to access a termination after being told her foetus had no chance of survival outside the womb.

Ms Ewart said providing new guidance “may help some women” but not those with fatal foetal diagnoses.

“All the guidance in the world cannot change Northern Ireland’s 19th-century law, and that is what is needed,” she said.

Last year the High Court ruled that the North’s abortion law was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. But a proposal to relax the law and legalise the termination of pregnancies where there is a fatal foetal abnormality was rejected by the Assembly in February.

– PA